As part of the partnership between Microsoft and Dropbox, the two companies have collaborated together to bring tighter Dropbox integration within Microsoft Office. The software giant’s mobile applications have also been upgraded with Dropbox support recently.
Today, a separate Dropbox initiative codenamed “Project Harmony” brings Dropbox to Office on the desktop. With it, the cloud storage provider set out to enable a new way to collaborate in real-time and share documents with others, enabling a greater level of productivity for Dropbox users.
Project Harmony runs as a layer on top of Office to do so and introduces the ‘Dropbox Badge’, a button that hovers on the edge of an Office Word, PowerPoint, or Excel file and provides added functionality, very similar to the Facebook Messenger badge on iOS and Android.
The Dropbox badge allows users to see who else is viewing or editing the documents they are working on, check for more recent versions of the document and making it easy to update it quickly with a click of a button, and generate a link to easily share the document, all without having to leave the Office document.
“Now collaborating on your files doesn’t have to mean endless emails back and forth, worrying about who else is editing your file while you’re working on it, or uploading the doc into a different format just so you can work with others.” – Matt Holden, Dropbox
Dropbox has been testing Project Harmony with business customers as a beta, and Under Armour (a sports clothing and accessories company) has been particularly impressed with it.
“Dropbox for Business is critical to helping our team collaborate, and Project Harmony has made it even easier to work together in native applications. With the ability to see who else is in the file, update to the latest version, and share a Dropbox link right from the Microsoft Office file, team members never have to worry about redundant work.” – Brian McManus, Senior Director of Technology, Under Armour
An early access program is now available for Dropbox for Business subscribers to try out here.
